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Clearly, some Jews did. Not all of the early converts to Christianity were Gentiles.

True. I guess I should be more careful on word choice.

So at least some Jews were open to the idea of a crucified, spiritual messiah.

The messiah issue is still an issue in modern Judaism. Doesn't need to be crucified. Just look at Chabad/Lubavich Hassidim and their deceased Rebbe.

But it's an interesting question why, in the earliest days of Christianity, the idea was as convincing as it proved to be if so many clear arguments against it can be made.

Its interesting to wonder about the split. It's probably part political, part socioeconomic. Maybe some people were more learned than others. Maybe some were more connected to the classical values and others wanted to break out and be apart of something new. I doubt we'll ever know the real truth but just have to live with where we are today.

Mainstream Jews don't believe in a literal interpretation of some of the Hebrew Bible.

Who do you define as a mainstream Jew? The non-orthodox denominations of Judaism are greater in number which would make them more "mainstream" in one view. However, observant Jews who follow the books to a T are more "mainstream" in observance.

There is a video on Youtube of Chief Rabbi Lord Johnathan Sacks debating Richard Dawkins and he brings down some commentators and their explanation regarding interpreting parts of scripture as literal and others as homiletical.

And which parts are literally true and which are allegory is debated among Jews.

Also true. For non religious people, I always find the writing of the RamBam to be most appropriate for them. In Judaism he is often seen as the "rationalist". His book, "Guide to the Perplexed" is a good philosophical book contrasting Jewish philosophy against Aristotle/Greek philosophy.

So how can someone who is very much in support of the scientific enterprise hold beliefs that are so deeply inimical to science?

How can people so in support of scientific thought be so against religious outlook? Aren't we just accepting what a bunch of men wrote in books? I haven't seen all the facets of science I've learned about physically in front of me, but it makes sense, and most people are cool with it, so I go with the flow. But science is fallible, gets corrected and changed, abused and misused, and has its own perilous downfalls for mankind as well. It's all inversely reflexive.

That's the point. Religion thinks it is infallible and posits truths to everything with no evidence and no practical application. Skepticism and doubt are what change anything, especially science. If it's not reproducible or verifiable it is useless.

That kind of exists in Judaism. The Talmud exists to explain the nuances within the Torah. There are only 4 sentences of the entire bible dedicated to the concept of "divorce" but there is about 200 pages of talmud explaining nuances and intricacies of divorce law, as well as other relevant aspects of Jewish law it stumbles into. Not to mention, that each page also carries two medieval commentaries beside the text explaining certain words or concepts within the text. Sometimes the later commentary disagrees with the earlier commentator, and not to mention that the actual text within the talmud is discussion of rabbi's centuries later discussing what rabbi's of centuries earlier were talking about and trying to fully understand through their vagueness.

So what happens with all this is that all the Jewish law eventually got codified into a book called the Shulcan Aruch (lit. A Set Table) sometimes around the 1500's (IIRC) and explains how to perform Jewish law as laid out within the Torah, its expansion within the talmud, and I think mentions other commentators understanding of these aspects. I've never read the Shulcan Aruch though, so I don't want to make any absolute statements on it.

What I can say is that there is definitely practical application if you live through Torah law. I keep kosher. I should know at what point a pot becomes a "meat" pot or a "dairy" pot. Is it when I pour milk in it or drop in ground beef? Is it when I cook it? At what point does the status of a new pot get changed and can I ever change it back? I also observe the sabbath, and I'm supposed to refrain from doing "work." What is considered work and how do I properly refrain from it? It's a long answer, but these books exist to explain all this.

No, a malformed version of it does. In Judaism, the presumption that Judaism is true exists. The methodology of science and skepticism require a stricter kind of doubt that does not grant that starting position, and any ideology that uses the malformed version is in fact the enemy of science since it will only serve to obscure the tools of skepticism and doubt.

In a sense, Judaism is arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and scientific, skeptical thinking is saying there are no angels to argue about in the first place.

Anything Judaism produces using this malformed method would be highly suspect and should be treated as false. Divorce law is unrelated.

how can people so in support of scientific thought be so against religious outlook?

I'm not in support of scientific thought (whatever that means?) as I am in support of scientific methodology. Compare it against religious methodology which seems to be that someone claims to have heard from god and write down what they remember (or someone else does decades later), and it's accepted at face value as true. Plus, the whole viewing faith (belief without evidence) as a virtue in all things relating to god, rather than as the first step of testing something. The two methodologies are nothing alike.

Science corrects its mistakes, requires evidence, builds theories from evidence, and it gets more and more correct over time. Religion starts with 'god did it' as the explanation for everything, and retreats from it in places where proven wrong. Too very different approaches.

The messiah issue is still an issue in modern Judaism. Doesn't need to be crucified.

Very true. But one of the arguments Christians use to support their thesis is that no Jew could have invented a crucified messiah, so the only way the story of Jesus could have been written is if he really was crucified, and really was the messiah. The fact that some Jews were obviously open to the idea of a crucified messiah means that such an argument falls flat, because if they could accept it, they could invent it.

That's mainly a point to be made to Christians, however. The relevant point for Judaism is that the very existence of Christianity is an indicator that Judaism was not monolithic in it beliefs. Some Jews in the 1st century held ideas that made them receptive to the possibility that Jesus was the messiah. One of the common misconceptions about Judaism, even among Jews, is that it is unlike other religions in that it doesn't have many sectarian splits. That is arguably not the case.

I doubt we'll ever know the real truth but just have to live with where we are today.

See, that's not the attitude of a skeptic. Figuring this out is interesting. I enjoy the study of religions, in an objective and unbiased way. I like getting to know their histories, how their scriptures were assembled, and so on. We can look at religions scientifically. I recommend Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell for a wonderful exploration of this idea.

Who do you define as a mainstream Jew?

By "mainstream", I mean the most widely accepted point of view. For example, I'm perfectly willing to grant that mainstream Jewish thought accepts biological evolution, at least to some degree. The Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox movements have all stated that they see no conflict between modern evolutionary theory and the Jewish religion. However, some Haredi rabbis have expressed strong opposition. They're not mainstream, but they are out there.

His book, "Guide to the Perplexed" is a good philosophical book contrasting Jewish philosophy against Aristotle/Greek philosophy.

I find this rather interesting, because I've recently come across J.W. Wesselius' The Origin of the History of Israel, arguing that the first nine books of the Hebrew Bible consciously emulate Herodotus' Histories, and Argonauts of the Desert by Philippe Wajdenbaum, which makes a more broadly-based argument that it is based on Greek literature.

How can people so in support of scientific thought be so against religious outlook? Aren't we just accepting what a bunch of men wrote in books?

No, we are not. Of course we can't go observe everything for ourselves; we don't have the time and resources. But science has no authorities, only experts. We don't trust the people. We trust the method. Because it has proven itself time and again to be the best tool we have for discerning whether or not a statement is true. If a scientific paper follows the method, we can be reasonably confident that it's probably correct. If it's not correct, we will find that out by continuing to apply the scientific method.

But science is fallible, gets corrected and changed, abused and misused, and has its own perilous downfalls for mankind as well.

That science gets corrected is one of its strengths, not a weakness. Science is an asymptotic approach to the truth; its degree of error attenuates over time. We know that the scientific method can never prove anything to be right. What it can do, what it's designed to do, is make us less wrong.

I think Carl Sagan gave the definitive response here:

Science is a collective enterprise which embraces many cultures and spans the generations; in every age and sometimes in the most unlikely places there are those who wish with a great deal of passion to understand the world. There is no way of knowing where the next discovery will come from, what dream of the mind’s eye will remake the world. These dreams begin as impossibilities. Once, even to see a planet through a telescope was an astonishment; but we studied these worlds, figured out how they moved in their orbits, and soon we were planning voyages of discovery beyond the earth and sending robot explorers to the planets and the stars.

We humans long to be connected with our origins so we create rituals. Science is another way to experience this longing. It also connects us with our origins, and it too has its rituals and its commandments. Its only sacred truth is that there are no sacred truths. All assumptions must be critically examined. Arguments from authority are worthless. Whatever is inconsistent with the facts — no matter how fond of it we are — must be discarded or revised. Science is not perfect. It is often misused. It is only a tool, but it is the best tool we have — self-correcting, ever changing, applicable to everything. With this tool we vanquish the impossible; with the methods of science we have begun to explore the cosmos.